


Aftershocks

by captainamergirl



Series: A Drabble A Day [4]
Category: The Bold and the Beautiful
Genre: And Not In Each Other's Backs This Time, Burying The Hatchet, Gen, Girl Power, Hope and Steffy Work Together, Team Stope, not against each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 23:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14436171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: Hope finds a seriously injured Steffy.





	Aftershocks

**Author's Note:**

> A Steffy and Hope friendship one shot. I wrote this story for a prompt because I am just so tired of Hope and Steffy being enemies & constantly fighting over a man. I thought what if, for just one shining moment they worked together and truly bonded over a common goal?

**Aftershocks**  
  
It was just a subtle trembling at first - a light rattling of the glass in the framed photographs that sat atop her desk. It wasn't until the books behind her began to seemingly leap off of the shelf that she truly comprehended the enormity of what was happening.  
  
The ground quaked violently then, shaking her chair beneath her. The filing cabinets beside her rocked on their bases. The bookshelf behind her teetered as well. Hope screamed as she dove for the safety of the floor, squirming beneath the desk just as the huge mahogany case came crashing down atop the oak desk. She heard the splintering of wood and threw a hand up to her mouth to stifle a blood-curdling scream of terror. The desk barely could contain the weight. It was starting to crack right down the center!  
  
Outside, she heard screams and sirens and chaos. Things were still crashing all about her, and though she had never been one for prayer, she said a quick Hail Mary. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribcage as the bookcase creaked above her. Any minute, it was going to crash right through what remained of the desk and crush her. She had to get to the doorway. That was the safest place, right?  
  
She squirmed free and looked around before sliding on her belly through the room. The floor was cluttered with all manner of debris and glass and she nicked herself on a shard before she hurtled herself to her feet and ran for the safety of the threshold. She held on tightly to the walls as the whole world seemed to rock on its axis.  
  
And then as soon as it had begun, the earthquake stopped. Hope let out the breath she had been holding. A tear ran down her cheek and she dashed at it wildly. “What the hell?” She murmured, looking at the wreckage of her office at Forrester Creations. It would take months to repair this damage. But that wasn’t what bothered her. She could still hear screams in the building, even though they sounded far, far away to her ears. She thought about her Mom - was Brooke alright? Was Rick? What about Maya? RJ? God, he was downstairs at the loading dock today! Suppose he’d been hurt by one of the big rigs when the earth started spinning. And Liam! Liam, he’d been out of the office all day attending a conference up state for Hope for the Future. How badly had he been hit by the quake?  
  
She had to get out of there. She had to find her family and her friends. She carefully stepped out into the hallway. She didn't see anyone but she did notice the floor was strewn with glass from fallen light fixtures. The plants Pam took such pride and joy tending to were tipped over and dirt mashed under her feet as she carefully navigated her way through the debris. She was halfway to the bank of elevators when it occurred to her that it was a bad idea to actually ride in one right then. In all of the first aid seminars she’d attended in high school, the instructors had drilled into their students the knowledge that they should avoid going on an elevator in the event of an emergency such as this one. She sighed. She’d have to take the back staircase instead.  
  
She walked carefully back the way she had come and then further back still, until she looped around a corner. She went down a long corridor and soon the staircase was within sight. It was eerily quiet back there and also strangely dark for noonday. Several beams had fallen down - one of which was blocking the entrance to the staircase. Hope sighed but she was determined to climb over it. She needed to get out of there; escape to freedom before an inevitable aftershock hit.  
  
She moved to the staircase - looping one lean leg over the beam as she grasped the railing as firmly as she could with two clammy hands. With a loud grunt, she heaved herself upwards and began her climb. She was halfway there when she heard a voice - a soft, pained voice calling out from somewhere below. _“Hello? Is anyone out there?”_  
  
Her foot paused midway to the next step. “Steffy?” She asked. She was almost sure she had imagined it at first. Steffy sounded so… weak. And weak - that wasn’t who Steffy Forrester was.  
  
“Steffy... where are you?”  
  
 _“Hope?”_ Steffy called back, her voice a little louder this time. “Is that you?”  
  
“Yes, it’s me. Where are you?”  
  
“In the bathroom. I was in here when the quake started… Hope, I’m -” Her voice sounded distant, far away, like it was fading fast. “I’m... in labor.”  
  
“What?” Hope’s stomach dropped into her toes. “But you’re not due for another month…”  
  
“Well this baby has some other ideas. I need help.”  
  
“I’ll see what I can do.” Hope turned around and started back down the steps as carefully as she could. She had to scale over the beam and then she was on solid ground again. She ran for the bathroom door and pushed it open. She wasn’t at all prepared for the sight that met her eyes.  
  
Steffy was slumped over on the floor, holding her swollen belly, tear tracks staining her unnaturally pale cheeks. A sizeable gash in her forehead dripped crimson blood down her skin, pooling in the collar of her blouse. “Steffy, what happened?” Hope asked, immediately running for the paper towel dispenser. She grabbed a handful and wet them with warm water. She moved to Steffy and gingerly pressed them to the cut in Steffy’s forehead. Steffy barely seemed to register the contact.  
  
“What?” Stefy asked vacantly, her fingers gripping her belly, her features tightening in pain as another contraction seemed to have her firmly in its grasp.  
  
“The cut. How’d you cut your face?”  
  
“Oh that. When the earthquake hit, I lost my balance ... smacked my head against the sink…”  
  
“Steffy… We need to get you and the baby to a hospital right now. I’m going to call for an ambulance, okay?”  
  
“I already tried that. There’s no signal down here.”  
  
“We have to try. Hold the compress over your head while I dial okay? _Okay, Steffy?”_ Hope said, trying to keep the hysteria out of her voice. This situation… It was more than Hope could comprehend. More than she could handle.  
  
Steffy nodded slowly. Hope grabbed her hand and brought Steffy’s tiny fingers up to her forehead. She pressed them to the wet napkins and said again, “Hold it in place. We have to stop the bleeding.” Then she reached into her pocket and yanked out her cell phone. She punched in 911 on speed-dial. She quickly saw that there was indeed no signal. She moved around the bathroom trying to get a signal but it was no use. There was no way of getting through.  
  
“Dammit!” Hope cursed. She threw down the phone and turned to look at Steffy. Steffy’s head was lolling to the side. “Steffy, I need you to hold on a little longer okay? I’m going to find help. Maybe my mom, or Pam, or -”  
  
Steffy’s eyelashes fluttered and she stared up at Hope with eyes full of pain and pleading. “No, Hope. You can’t leave. I am not going to be able to wait that long. She’s coming -” She whimpered and gripped her belly - “any minute. You have to help me. Now. Please. I can’t lose her, okay? I can’t lose another baby. I know you and I have had more than our share of differences but she’s innocent. She’s not a part of any of that crap. Help her, okay? Not me. Help _her.”_  
  
“Steffy,” Hope cried. “I’m not a doctor! I’m not a midwife either. I can be upstairs and back in ten minutes. No, in five!”  
  
“Hope! Plea-” Steffy broke off as her body spasmed with another contraction. She whimpered, biting down on her plump bottom lip. Hope paced the room for a long moment, torn by indecision and doubt. Self-doubt. She didn’t know the first thing about delivering a child. She was scared to death. Then she thought about how scared Steffy had to be for her child and she knew she had no other choice.  
  
“Okay, Steffy,” Hope said. “Okay, I’ll help, alright?” She ran to the sink and turned on the faucet. She rolled up her sleeves and scrubbed under her fingernails and up to her elbows the way she had seen done on all of those medical shows. Then carefully she shut off the water with a clean paper towel and chucked it into the trash can.  
  
She moved to Steffy and got down on her knees in front of her. “Alright, Steffy, we’re about to become really familiar here. I’m sorry though… Sorry this happened and sorry that you’re hurting so much.”  
  
Steffy just nodded. “Lie back, okay?” Hope said. She said another quick prayer to a God she’d never really believed in as she helped Steffy lay down. Steffy rested on her elbows although even the act of holding herself halfway up, appeared to be exhausting as hell.  
  
Hope was grateful Steffy had worn one of her signature skirts today because it was easier to tug down, even as wet as it was with birth fluids. She set it and her underwear aside. Hope tried not to cringe. Steffy was really bloody down there. Was a woman supposed to be bleeding so much before the baby was even out? Hope forced the lump in her throat down as best as she could.  
  
“Alright, Steffy, so here’s how this is going to work,” Hope said. “You’re going to push three times when I say so and then your baby … Your little girl… She’s going to be here, okay?” _God, please let this work,_ Hope thought. “Alright, Steffy? Stay with me.”  
  
“Alright,” Steffy murmured.  
  
“Okay, first push.... Go, Steffy, push!” Hope said. She pressed her hands down onto Steffy’s lean kneecaps as Steffy pushed with all her might. Steffy screamed loudly and tears gushed down her face. “I see - I see the top of her head!” Hope said. “Okay, Steffy, you’re doing great.”  
  
“That - that sucked,” Steffy moaned. “Ohmigod!”  
  
“I can only imagine what you're going through, but you’re doing great. Steffy, you’re almost home. Only a little more to go. You ready for push number two?”  
  
“I don’t know … If I can.”  
  
“Yes, you can, Steffy. Come on, Steffy. You’re strong. You know you are. That’s one thing we all know you have in spades… strength. You’re not going to let a little thing like giving birth in the middle of the wreckage of an earthquake kick your ass, are you?” Hope asked, trying so hard to keep the pep in her voice although she was having a hard time keeping the faith herself. Steffy looked so pale. Why did she have to look so damned pale?  
  
“Hope, I’m tired. I’ve never felt so tired before.”  
  
“I know, but we’re almost there. And then your beautiful girl will be here. So push, Steffy. I _command_ you to push. I mean it.”  
  
Steffy’s lips quirked in an almost smile. “You’re one demanding broad, you know that?” She moved up onto her elbows again. “Okay, okay.” Hope held her knees once more. Steffy let out a feral, loud, bold scream as she pushed.  
  
“One more push, Steffy, one more!” Hope said. “She’s almost all the way here. And she’s so pretty from what I can see. One more for her okay?”  
  
“I can’t. I can’t.”  
  
“You can. _You will.”_ Hope grabbed Steffy’s hand with her free one for a moment. “You know what I envy about you? How truly fierce you are. How you just never give up no matter how tough things get. So don’t give up now or I’ll never, ever let you hear the end of it okay? One more push and you’re done. Just one more - I promise!”  
  
Steffy nodded weakly and with one last, low whimper, she pushed. The baby slid into Hope’s waiting hands and Hope felt tears rolling down her face as the little infant looked up at her with a red, wrinkly face and promptly burst into tears. “Is she - is she okay?” Steffy asked.  
  
“I think she’s just fine,” Hope said. “She’s got a set of lungs on her - just like her mother.”  
  
“Hah,” Steffy said quietly. “What’s she look like?”  
  
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Hope said. She carefully cradled the weeping infant to her chest and crawled across the floor to Steffy. “She looks just like you - look at all that dark brown hair!”  
  
“She’s - she’s beautiful,” Steffy said.  
  
“Ready to hold her, Mom?”  
  
“Hope, I-” Steffy started to say but broke off as the floor began to shake beneath them. The doors on the stalls flew open, one slamming hard into Hope’s back, sending her nearly hurtling off balance. She managed to right herself in time to avoid falling on the baby. Hope screamed as the windows rattled wildly.  
  
“Hope!” Steffy screamed. “Get the baby out of here!”  
  
“We can't leave you."  
  
“Hope, please. She’ll get hurt. Those windows - they’re going to ex-explode. Please take my baby out of here. Save her, Hope. You have to save her one more time today.”  
  
“We’ll make a run for it - together.”  
  
“I can’t move, Hope.”  
  
“We can do it.”  
  
“No, I can’t,” Steffy said. “I - I’m too weak. So take the baby. Please. Just give her a good life. You and Liam and -”  
  
“Steffy, no. _Shut up._ Shut up right now. Don’t finish that sentence. We’re getting out of here. All three of us! Now take your baby!”  
  
“Hope, please-”  
  
“Take your daughter. Hold her tight. Calm her.” Hope said commandingly. “Dammit, do it, Steffy.”  
  
Steffy nodded. “Alright.” She held out her arms as best as she could. She clutched the squirming, screaming infant to her and kissed the crown of her fluffy little head. Then Hope quickly looked around for an escape route. There really wasn’t one. She could try to drag Steffy and the baby out of there, but they would never make it far enough in time and she might hurt Steffy still worse. She had only one option.  
  
Just before the windows exploded, Hope crouched over the mother and child, hoping her body provided enough of a shield from the flying glass.  
  
Xoxoxo  
  
“Okay, that was either the dumbest thing Hope has ever done … Or the bravest,” she heard someone say. They sounded far away. It took a moment for the fog in her brain to clear away enough that she could place the voice. It was Rick. Her big brother Rick.  
  
“I think it was impossibly brave.” That was … Maya. Yes, Rick's wife, Maya. “I can only hope I’d be so willing to help someone in their time of need.”  
  
“She doesn’t even like Steffy,” Rick said. “My sister, the good little Samaritan.”  
  
“Well, maybe this is the start of a new beginning for the two of them,” a third voice said. Her aunt Katie.  
  
“All I know is Hope saved Steffy and my niece yesterday and I will be forever in her debt for that.” Wyatt. Dear Wyatt.  
  
“I just want her to wake up,” she heard her mother say. “I know the doctors said she needs her rest but I want to know she’s going to really be okay. I need to hear her say it with my own two ears.”  
  
“I am going to be okay… At least, I think so anyway,” Hope said, deciding to announce that she was awake then. She opened her eyes to find friends and family sitting around her bed. Her mother Brooke immediately dove on her and she winced. “Mom...”  
  
“Oh sorry, honey, I’m sorry. I’m just so glad you’re awake. You must be so sore.”  
  
“Uh, yeah. A little,” she said.  
  
“Thank god you’re awake,” RJ said. “We’ve been worried sick about you, Sis.”  
  
“I am glad to be awake.” The events of the day before came rushing back to her in full, technicolor detail. “Steffy? The baby?” She asked. “Are they-”  
  
“They’re fine,” Brooke said. “Thanks to you. Steffy lost an incredible amount of blood but she’s alive and expected to make a full recovery. And the baby is well too. Thriving, I believe, is the term the doctors used.”  
  
“Oh, I’m so glad.”  
  
“I can’t believe you took a bunch of glass shards to the back for your worst enemy,” Rick said. “You could have been paralyzed or something.”  
  
“Rick-” Maya sighed.  
  
“Well, maybe I don’t want Steffy to be my worst enemy anymore,” Hope said.  
  
“I am glad to hear you say that,” Steffy’s voice came from the doorway. Hope looked up to see Steffy sitting there in a wheelchair. “I came to see if you were awake and you are… Can we talk alone for a moment?”  
  
Hope nodded. “Sure.”  
  
“First, the doctors need to examine Hope-” Brooke started.  
  
“Alright, well, I’ll wait in the hallway then. I’ll be back.”  
  
Xoxoxo  
  
After the doctors had examined Hope and given her a clean bill of health and promised her the scars on her skin would heal in time, Steffy wheeled herself into the room. She rolled herself over to Hope’s bedside and said, “You look like crap.”  
  
Hope smirked. “You don’t look so hot yourself.”  
  
“I know, right?”  
  
“But at least we’re alive.”  
  
“Yes, about that… You know I’m alive - you know my baby’s alive … Because of you… Because of what you did.”  
  
“Steffy…”  
  
“It’s true, Hope. My little girl is alright. Better than alright, actually. She’s upstairs, sleeping in Liam’s arms right now, because of your quick thinking. Because you put aside every angry feeling you had for me and were there for her. You may hate me but-”  
  
“Steffy, stop.”  
  
“Hope, come on -”  
  
“No, stop. You said I hate you, but that's not true. I mean, maybe there was a time I thought I did. Or at least, I hated your actions but … Not anymore. You fought for your baby and I saw that fierce love you had for her … And it amazed me. I want to be a mother someday too, and when I am, I hope I can love my child and protect them the way you do your baby.”  
  
“That means a lot.” Steffy smiled but it was weak. “Hope, I have to be honest here… Liam… and I…”  
  
“You’re trying things again, aren’t you?”  
  
“Yes … For the baby…”  
  
“And because you love each other.”  
  
“Yes … But I seriously take no pleasure in your pain, Hope. Maybe at one time I would have, but not anymore, okay? Please believe that. I owe you my life. I owe you my daughter’s life and if there is anything I can do-”  
  
“There is.”  
  
“Name it.”  
  
“Be happy.”  
  
“Seriously? That’s just so… Hallmark.”  
  
Hope nodded. “Yes, it is. But I do mean it. It’s sad that it took an earthquake to put everything into perspective for me but it finally happened. I realized I don’t want to fight with you anymore. No man, not even Liam, is worth that kind of pain. Maybe we’ll never be best friends again, like we used to be as kids, but maybe we don’t have to try to hurt each other anymore either.”  
  
“I’d like to stop hurting each other… Thank you, Hope.”  
  
Steffy leaned over and gave Hope a long, warm hug. Then she backed up her wheelchair and rolled to the door. She paused and turned back to look at Hope. “Hey, you never asked me what we named our little girl.”  
  
“Oh yeah.”  
  
“Her name is Phoebe. Phoebe _Hope_ Spencer.”  
  
Hope’s eyes filled with tears. “Really?”  
  
“Yes. I mean, it just seemed fitting somehow… Thanks again.”  
  
“You’re welcome, Steffy, you’re welcome.”  
  
THE END.


End file.
